This was already shaping up to be a nostalgia-infused World Series, with the Yankees and Dodgers squaring off for the twelfth time in 120 years but the first time since 1981, when they respectfully only played well enough between April and June to qualify for the first iteration of a three-round post-season tournament similar to the paths their teams took this year. And with the past week’s death of the Dodgers’ rookie phenom from that ’81 Classic, Fernando Valenzuela, with hundreds of his jerseys on the backs of the well-heeled fans in attendance for last night’s opener and a blue #34 omnipresently etched into the pitcher’s mound, there were plenty of reminders of those past meetings between the two one-time Five Boroughs rivals.
So it was almost fitting that last night’s game evoked memories of two more post-seasons that they were involved in separately. FANSIDED’s Katrina Simmons noted how the result brought back the echoes of what turned out to be the Dodgers’ only other full-season World Championship since the ’81 matchup:
The Dodgers were down to their last three outs in the bottom of 10th, with the bottom third of the lineup coming up. Just one of them had to reach base safely in order to get Shohei Ohtani to the plate. Will Smith flew out, but Gavin Lux walked to all but guarantee an Ohtani at-bat, provided Tommy Edman avoided a double play.
And he almost didn’t. He hit a grounder past second, which Oswaldo Cabrera dove at but couldn’t come up with, and then it was Ohtani’s turn with one out.
Ohtani ended up flying out — and not deep enough to move runners up — but this is the thing about having three former MVPs at the top of your lineup. Get one out, another follows.
After calling in Nestor Cortes from the bullpen for his first postseason appearance this season, the Yankees intentionally walked Mookie Betts to load the bases and get to Freddie Freeman, who had a triple (his first extra-base hit of the postseason) in the top of the first. It was clear why the Yankees would rather pitch to Freeman. His ankle had been hindering him throughout October, and he was batting just .242 in the postseason after that triple.
All it took was one single pitch from Cortes, a fastball at the edge of the zone. Freeman knew that was his pitch immediately. It traveled 423 feet — a grand slam walk-off for Freddie Freeman.
Immediately, Freeman was anointed into the same pantheon of Dodger lore that Kirk Gibson etched himself into with a walk-off two-run blast in the opener of the 1988 series against the heavily favored Oakland Athletics. But while the resultsand the celebrations may have been similar, the circumstances involving the two aren’t quite equal.
For one, Gibson was a surprise pinch-hitter, not someone who had been playing the field for ten innings prior. For another, his walk-off was off the unquestioned best closer of the era, Dennis Eckersely, the obvious choice to close out a one-run game on the road versus Cortes, who began the year in the starting rotation but whose nagging injuries and poor performances eventually relegated him to the bullpen before an extended stay on the disabled list. And the walk that preceded the game-winning homer, pinch-hitter and ex-Athletic Mike Davis, was anything but intentional.
Freeman’s heroics, and the rally that preceded it, were made all the more possible in part because of what happened in the ninth inning to the Yankees that certain viewers in Maryland might have been cheering all the more, as FOX NEWS’ Ryan Gaydos described:
A Los Angeles Dodgers fan nearly became the next Jeffrey Maier on Friday night during Game 1 of the World Series.
New York Yankees infielder Gleyber Torres smoked a pitch to left field in the top of the ninth inning and it appeared the ball was going to leave the park for a clutch home run. However, the fan reached over the fence and was determined to have interfered with the play. Torres had to settle for a double as umpires confirmed the fan interference.
Fans immediately recalled the Maier incident from the 1996 American League Championship Series between the Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles.
Maier reached over the right field fence on a Derek Jeter home run and deflected the ball that was at least going to be over the head of Baltimore outfielder Tony Tarasco.
The play on Friday night would have given the Yankees the lead. MLB didn’t have replay in 1996 and used umpire Richie Garcia’s judgment on the play. Garcia, after reviewing the replay, admitted his mistake.
So once again, only somewhat similar circumstances and, of course, a different result.
So Yankee fans are understandably upset and downright worried, given that these prior Game 1 walk-offs both resulted in their respective teams’ winning their series handily in five games. For me, the seminal event to take note of today will be how Dodger starter Yoshinobu Yamamato fares in the afterglow of what went down last night. I was in attendance at Game 2 of the ’88 Series, Dodger fans bleary-eyed and hung over from the long celebratory night that followed Gibson’s heroics and, like today, a twilight start L.A. time. On that balmy October day, Orel Hershiser continued the level of dominance he displayed in the deciding Game 7 against the Mets–his second straight 6-0 complete game shutout.
Take heart, Yankee fans. There’s virtually no chance we’ll see anything like that tonight. How dissimilar Yamamato’s line will eventually be will determine how upbeat a flight to New York your team will have tomorrow, and whether this throwback Yankee-Dodger series brings back the kind of results we saw in the inter-borough versions.
Courage…